


you gave them a chance

by cheloniidae



Category: BioShock
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-30
Updated: 2015-12-30
Packaged: 2018-05-10 12:22:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 865
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5585224
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cheloniidae/pseuds/cheloniidae
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Brigid built Jack with the strength of a giant, but as he pushes Masha and Julie on the swings, he's the gentlest man in the world.</p>
            </blockquote>





	you gave them a chance

The park isn’t as beautiful as Arcadia had been, at first glance. No ferns, no vines, no lilies growing in creekbeds. No verdant greens, no vibrant pinks or purples. All this park has is spotted, uneven grass, a handful of old oak trees, and a wooden playset. But the little ones are playing, laughing, and Brigid has never seen anything more miraculous.

Convincing the little ones that the outdoors was safe had been a different kind of struggle from getting them out of Rapture, but no less difficult. After a childhood surrounded by aluminum and glass, years of knowing that walls were all that stood between them and drowning, the idea of outside had been foreign to them. Foreign and frightening. But they’re here now, in the sunshine and open air. And finally, finally, they're beginning to embrace it.

Minnie waves at Brigid from the top of the playset like a queen greeting her subjects, and she turns back to playing before Brigid can wave back. It’s as though the girl was never afraid of the outdoors at all.

Jack is to thank for that. Brigid spent half her life in Rapture; as irrational as she knows it is, it’s difficult to feel at ease without walls around her. And while parts of the little ones’ conditioning still clings to their minds, cobwebs in a building’s unreachable corners, they are observant. They catch on to her nervousness. But Jack, who spend the past two years under a blue Kansas sky, has no such reservations. The girls draw strength from his confidence— and he, in turn, draws strength from their reliance on him.

Her clearest memory of him: three months old, with the body of an eight year old child, asking when his physical examination would be over. _I haven’t fed Spot today, Mama Tenenbaum! I’m sure she’s hungry; I don’t wanna make her wait._

Brigid built Jack with the strength of a giant, but as he pushes Masha and Julie on the swings, he is the gentlest man in the world. Their delighted laughter rings across the park with each downward arc. No matter how nervous Brigid is, the sound never fails to make her smile.

They no longer speak of angels and rosies, and that is a blessing beyond measure.

The wind renders the conversation between Jack and the two girls indistinct, but he leaves the swings and sits on the bench next to Brigid. Sweat is starting to soak through his shirt; the midsummer Massachusetts air is too hot for a sweater, and the one he’d worn to Rapture had been too filthy — soaked with blood and brine — for him to do anything but throw it out.

She’d caught his expression when he gingerly placed the torn cable-knit in the trash. _It was the last gift my mom,_ he’d started to explain, and then he’d turned away from her. She hadn’t asked if he remembered who really gave it to him. If he knew, he didn’t say.

“They got tired of the swings.” After months of treatments and therapy and practice, Jack can speak a coherent sentence without his brow knitting in pain. His voice will never be what it was before his return to Rapture. But then, little else will, either. “Y’know, they’d never seen one before.”

“There was little room for swings in—” She knows how much he hates hearing the name. “—the city. Julie would never have allowed such a thing.”

The first Julie, namesake of the one currently slipping down the slide. Two of the girls Jack rescued had forgotten their own names, and he’d been the one to give them new ones. Jasmine and Julie. _I won’t turn into him_ , was the only explanation Jack gave for the choice. Brigid understood that more than she wanted to.

“I wish,” he begins, and stops. “I wish she was here.”

Brigid swallows, hands itching to take a cigarette from her purse. She knows what he really means. “You did all you could.”

Jack doesn’t reply to that. He exhales slowly, tired from a burden he’s far too young to carry. Younger than the oldest little one, yet he bears the responsibility without wavering. Brigid knows Jack Ryan is a miracle. “You ever think you’d see them like this?” His eyes follow Sally as she swings from monkey-bar to monkey-bar. “Playing in the sun.”

“I hoped for this. For them to have this chance.”

“The chance to be kids, huh?” There’s a wry cast to his smile— but Brigid blinks, and the wryness is gone, replaced by sincerity. “They deserve it.”

“They do.”  _You did as well, child_ , sits on the tip of her tongue. She keeps the words inside her head. Jack will never have the chance to truly be a child, and that can never be fixed. Opening that wound — one she bears responsibility for, one that can never be healed — would be nothing but cruel.

Perhaps Jack’s voice is tired, or perhaps there is nothing left to say. He stays silent beside her, leaning back against the bench, crossing an ankle over a knee. And together, under a hot midsummer sun, they watch their world continue to mend.


End file.
